More on John McEnroe's Backhand as a Model
Personally, I think the JMBH as productive model makes more sense than Roger Federer, Ivan Lendl, Justine Henin, Ivan Ljubicic, Eliot Teltscher, Brian Gottfried, Evonne Goolagong, Donald Budge or almost any other great one-hander anybody can think of.
First, the JMBH is almost as minimalist as the short straight back backhands favored by most of those tennis instructors who actually do teach one-handers nowadays.
Loop, however, is declared essential to a good one-hander by no less a master than E. Teltscher. Okay, so JM has a loop. The difference, compared to RF, say, is that the loop is small.
One probable reason people DON'T emulate JM is his zany, hump-wristed grip. Who else did that? Arthur Ashe. And JM places big knuckle on 1.5 for all of his strokes as revealed in YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS. What all this means is that wrist goes from humped to straight in the "turn the corner" phase of his arm swing. But why doesn't he hit the ball up into the sky? Because he rolls his arm to close his racket face, i.e., he keeps his elbow in, twisting it down. How much does he or doesn't he roll his forearm, too (?), one might wonder, but this is an academic question for someone with an eastern backhand grip.
Directing one's energies to finding one's own best way to round the corner sharply like Arthur Ashe or John McEnroe seems preferable over lockstep imitation of one or the other.
The goal again, re-phrased, is-- without using any disruptive muscular effort-- to push the racket tip ahead of the hand before the most vigorous part of the stroke.
What are the elements available for doing this? Moving wrist from concave to straight to concave again. Rolling the forearm clockwise. Rolling the elbow clockwise. But in what sequence or amounts or simultaneity? There is only one answer, and it comes in a single word: Invent.
Essential to the enterprise, as far as I'm concerned, is a very old tennis idea implicit in the McEnroe strips and in my old Arco book in which one riffles pages to see Evonne Goolagong clobber/caress the ball. This latter film has no soundtrack unless one is a poker shark super-sensitive to the noise of shuffling cards.
Thinking McEnroe only now, I say two counts to get the shoulders and bent arm turned back, one count including body segmentation and forward shoulders turn and rolling down of the racket tip to take all slack out of the arm (the very old tennis idea), one count to turn the corner with hand still held back, and a big fifth hitting count in which gross body takes over.
Personally, I think the JMBH as productive model makes more sense than Roger Federer, Ivan Lendl, Justine Henin, Ivan Ljubicic, Eliot Teltscher, Brian Gottfried, Evonne Goolagong, Donald Budge or almost any other great one-hander anybody can think of.
First, the JMBH is almost as minimalist as the short straight back backhands favored by most of those tennis instructors who actually do teach one-handers nowadays.
Loop, however, is declared essential to a good one-hander by no less a master than E. Teltscher. Okay, so JM has a loop. The difference, compared to RF, say, is that the loop is small.
One probable reason people DON'T emulate JM is his zany, hump-wristed grip. Who else did that? Arthur Ashe. And JM places big knuckle on 1.5 for all of his strokes as revealed in YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS. What all this means is that wrist goes from humped to straight in the "turn the corner" phase of his arm swing. But why doesn't he hit the ball up into the sky? Because he rolls his arm to close his racket face, i.e., he keeps his elbow in, twisting it down. How much does he or doesn't he roll his forearm, too (?), one might wonder, but this is an academic question for someone with an eastern backhand grip.
Directing one's energies to finding one's own best way to round the corner sharply like Arthur Ashe or John McEnroe seems preferable over lockstep imitation of one or the other.
The goal again, re-phrased, is-- without using any disruptive muscular effort-- to push the racket tip ahead of the hand before the most vigorous part of the stroke.
What are the elements available for doing this? Moving wrist from concave to straight to concave again. Rolling the forearm clockwise. Rolling the elbow clockwise. But in what sequence or amounts or simultaneity? There is only one answer, and it comes in a single word: Invent.
Essential to the enterprise, as far as I'm concerned, is a very old tennis idea implicit in the McEnroe strips and in my old Arco book in which one riffles pages to see Evonne Goolagong clobber/caress the ball. This latter film has no soundtrack unless one is a poker shark super-sensitive to the noise of shuffling cards.
Thinking McEnroe only now, I say two counts to get the shoulders and bent arm turned back, one count including body segmentation and forward shoulders turn and rolling down of the racket tip to take all slack out of the arm (the very old tennis idea), one count to turn the corner with hand still held back, and a big fifth hitting count in which gross body takes over.
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